Latest results from IMS Research's global report "PV System Integrator Market Shares & Profiles" reveal that Q-Cells International was responsible for close to 150 MW of new, non-residential PV capacity in 2009, surpassing rivals such as juwi and Sunpower. The study also reveals that Spanish system integrators, who dominated the market in 2008, subsequently slipped down the rankings in 2009 as their domestic market evaporated.

Ash Sharma, PV Group Director at IMS Research commented, "Despite the research identifying more than 200 active PV system integrators, none were identified as having a dominant market share in any of the segments analysed highlighting the extremely fragmented nature of the system integration business and the difficulties PV component suppliers face in identifying their largest potential customers".

"A number of PV component suppliers, such as Q-Cells and First Solar, have chosen to expand their activities from just supplying cells or modules to also building turn-key PV plants. It is likely this move was provoked by the need to chase margins that had tightened following the module price collapse in 2009, and also by the need to stimulate demand by financing and developing major PV plants themselves," Sharma added.

Although several hundred companies are now active in the non-residential market, industry consolidation looks certain, especially as challenging conditions are expected in the second half of 2010 following Germany's FIT cut. Total revenues generated by new PV systems installed in Germany in 2009 reached almost 17 billion US Dollars according to IMS Research's analysis " not quite as high as the 19 billion US Dollars generated by Spain the previous year.